Grand Egyptian Museum Lights Up Blue for Global Autism Campaign

The Grand Egyptian Museum will light up blue on April 2nd to mark World Autism Awareness Day, aligning Cairo with a global campaign coordinated from Egypt.

Led by the Egyptian Autistic Society, the 2026 initiative centres on the role of siblings within families of individuals with autism, highlighting their position as companions, advocates and support systems.

The campaign will run under the hashtags #GotYourBack and #في_ضهرك. For the first time, more than 20 international organisations, academic institutions and advocates across Africa, the Middle East, Europe, North America and Central Asia are coordinating activities under a unified theme, with shared messaging and content across the campaign period.

Participants include experts and organisations such as the Autism Research Centre, the Florida Institute of Technology, the International Behavior Analysis Organization and the Global Autism Project.

The Egyptian Autistic Society described the initiative as one of the first coordinated global autism awareness collaborations of its kind since the ‘Light It Up Blue’ campaign, bringing multiple international stakeholders together around shared activities.

As part of the programme in Egypt, the Grand Egyptian Museum will also host a month-long exhibition of chairs designed and created by individuals with autism, highlighting creative expression and encouraging broader engagement with neurodiversity.

The initiative was developed by autism advocate Dahlia Soliman, who has led awareness campaigns in Egypt for more than 15 years and is a member of the United Nations Autism Advocacy Coalition.